


So What Happens Now

by Smapdi, yumytaffy



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Finale, no seriously there's so much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 20:10:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7771486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smapdi/pseuds/Smapdi, https://archiveofourown.org/users/yumytaffy/pseuds/yumytaffy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are two sides to every breakup. </p><p>Rebecca and Greg deal with the aftermath of the finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rebecca

**Author's Note:**

> This hurts us more than it hurts you.

Rebecca walks up to Greg’s door with a spring in her step and a song in her heart. She feels like Sleeping Beauty after Prince Phillip breaks her out of the Maleficent’s curse, or Ariel after Prince Eric saves her from Ursula, or Jasmine after Aladdin rescues her from Jafar. 

She makes a mental note to think of a more feminist analogy later. In any case, she and Josh are together! Their love story can finally begin.

After they made love for the first time above the beautiful West Covina skyline, Josh insisted on taking her home to get some rest while he helped clean up after his sister’s wedding. What a gentleman.

Rebecca was too wired with happiness to sleep, though. She wanted to plan her and Josh’s future, maybe look for Joshie Bear now that it was totally appropriate for her to have him.

First thing's first: she and Greg are technically still dating, so she should put the kibosh on that as soon as possible. Not that Greg cares about being with her anyway, so really, breaking up with him is a formality. She doesn’t want to wait until morning. Why put it off? She also can’t just do it over text. She isn’t a monster. 

This is how she finds herself at Greg’s doorstep at 3 AM.

She raises her hand to knock, then realizes the door is slightly ajar. As she quietly slips inside, she wonders if it’s still considered breaking and entering if the door’s already open.

A dim lamp is on, illuminating Greg passed out on the couch with a trash can in front of him. If White Josh couldn’t close the door behind him, at least he had the foresight to do that before leaving.

“Greg,” Rebecca hisses as she shoves his shoulder. “Hey, wake up. We need to talk.”

In response, Greg mumbles something unintelligible and turns over before falling into a snore. A faint, familiar fondness for Greg washes over her, but she brushes it away. 

Rebecca sighs and checks the time on her phone. It’ll be morning in a few hours. She could come back or wait him out and get this breakup over with. The image of Josh’s beautiful smiling face comes to mind. Yep, she’s not going anywhere until she cuts ties with Greg so she and Josh can start with a clean slate.

She busies herself with contemplating merits of destination versus castle weddings while changing the bag in Greg’s trash can, straightening up the living room and kitchen, and occasionally making sure Greg hasn’t choked on his own vomit.

At some point, she must have fallen asleep. One minute, she’s brainstorming the names of her and Josh’s future children. The next, she’s sitting in the easy chair, and Greg is swaying slightly in front of her.

“Hey,” she greets groggily and recoils when he leans towards her. He still reeks faintly of alcohol and throw up. 

“What’re you doing here?” he slurs, still kind of drunk from the night before. Of course he is.

She shifts and winces from falling asleep in a weird position. She gestures to his discarded jacket that she draped over the couch. “I put a blanket on you and cleaned up.”

“I gotta take a shower,” he says apropos of nothing and stumbles to the bathroom.

Rebecca rolls her eyes, a little annoyed that he’s unknowingly postponing this whole breakup. On the other hand, though, she’s glad to be rid of that stench.

She figures she could take a cat nap while waiting for Greg to get himself together, but her bladder betrays her and pushes her to knock on the bathroom door. “Greg, can I come in? I really have to pee.”

“Yeah, okay,” he calls back.

She sweeps up her dress and tries to pee quickly and quietly while trying her damndest not to think about how she’s urinating mere feet from her wet, naked, almost-former kinda-boyfriend and that them in this bathroom is the most intimate they’ve been since before she was in the hospital. 

Emboldened by the shower curtain separating them, she figures it’s now or never. “Greg, we need to talk.”

“Yes, we do,” he agrees. She panics when his hand appears at the edge of the curtain.

“Wait, don’t come out yet!” They’re about to break up. He doesn’t need to also see her half-naked while holding up armfulls of chiffon.

“What? Why not?”

“You’re naked, and I’m peeing!”

“We’ve slept together. A lot. We’ve both seen everything.”

“Not me peeing! We’re not some couple who’s been married for ten years.”

“You think it takes ten years of marriage to see another person in the bathroom?”

“Yes! I mean, no. It doesn’t matter. Look, Greg, about last night...”

He cuts in with some half-assed apology about being a drunk jerk at the wedding, which is valid. He was the worst, so she’ll accept the apology, but that doesn’t change how this conversation has to end.

She tries again. “Greg—"

“I know it’s a shitty apology,” he continues. “It’s my specialty.”

She isn’t sure where this conversation is going, but she does know she’s losing control of it. “Greg, I don’t…”

“No, let me get this out. I really am sorry, Bunch.”

Rebecca’s breath catches at the nickname.

“You were excited,” Greg says, “and I was just feeling a little overwhelmed at how fast things were happening with us. I shouldn’t have been so cavalier about it.”

What? This definitely isn’t what Rebecca expected to hear. She doesn’t know what to say, so she flushes the toilet and washes her hands to fill her silence. 

Greg lets out a long exhale of breath. “I was thinking about what you said last night, about things being scary. I guess I was scared, too. I mean, this, us — this could be the real thing, Bunch. I don’t really know how to deal with that. Besides terribly, of course.”

Rebecca puts her hand over her mouth to cover up her shaky breaths. This isn’t Greg. This is the romantic Greg she made up to fill the Josh-shaped hole in her heart. Where was this guy when she laid all her feelings on the table?

“Part of me hasn’t been able to really accept that you’re over Josh,” he confesses. “I know that’s stupid, but it’s just like he’s been this presence between us.”

Josh’s name lands with a leaden thud in her gut. She needs to get out of there. Blood rushes in her ears and blocks out whatever Greg is saying as she quietly exits the bathroom, closes the door, and retreats to the living room.

Whatever certainty she had about breaking up with Greg evaporates, leaving a guilt she’s been denying since she saw him on the couch. Only a few hours ago, she was in really strong like with Greg. She wanted to be with him, maybe even thought there was something deeper between them...

Nope. She shakes her head and steels herself. This isn’t how this is going to go. How dare Greg make her feel guilty. After everything they’ve been through, the most he could say was that he thought she was “cool.” He wasn’t the only one scared of where their relationship was going, but she sucked it up and told him everything she felt, and he shut her down.

It doesn’t matter anyway. Whatever he said in the bathroom was too little, too late. She deserves someone who won’t just brush her heart aside when she puts it on the line. She deserves someone who will sweep her off her feet. She deserves Josh. He’s always been the one meant for her.

“Greg is not your prince,” Rebecca says quietly to herself.

"What?" Rebecca spins around to find Greg looking concerned. Very briefly, she allows herself the realization that there's a towel slung around his waist, and he's still kind of dripping from the shower. “You’re crying. Are you okay?”

She ignores how much she wants to wipe up her surely smudged eye makeup and stands up a little straighter. “Greg, we need to break up.”

“I—what? I just said—"

“I realized something last night. You and I aren't meant to be. I'm destined to be with someone else.”

“‘Meant to be’? ‘Destined’? This isn't some rom com, Rebecca.”

“It could be, just not with you and me.”

“Did something happen at the wedding?” She’s contemplating telling him the truth when realization dawns on his face. “It’s Josh, isn’t it? Of course. I step aside for one minute, and Josh just sweeps in.”

“That’s not—"

“You think Josh is your Prince Charming, right? I heard what you said when I came out of the bathroom. You think Josh is going to take you away, that you’ll live happily ever in your castle on a cloud.”

It’s not far from the truth, but she won’t allow him the satisfaction of being right. “Of course not.”

Greg pushes on, “Josh was with Valencia for 15 years, and look where they ended up. How do you think that’s gonna work out with you?”

Rebecca feels the ground shift. It’s a thought that’s nagged at the back of her head, but she never actually applied it to herself. “It’s different with me and Josh.”

“Yeah, you’re different, alright,” Greg scoffs. "Go ahead and ride off into the sunset together.” He shakes his head. “Life isn't a fairy tale, Rebecca. Me and you could've been real, but you just want some fantasy. It's always been Josh for you. I was only ever a placeholder."

An unexpected ire rises in Rebecca’s chest. "That's not true. Don't you dare pretend I didn't care about you. I was completely honest about how I felt. I was so scared, and you let me down.” She takes a step towards him. “I'm going to get my happy ending with someone who isn't afraid to care about me.”

“Good luck with that,” he calls after her as she stomps off to the front door.

The adrenaline from their fight seems to drain out of her when her hand grips the doorknob. “I did pick you” is what she thinks. What she says is a quiet, “Bye, Greg” before she closes the door behind her.

Outside, she squints up at the already too-bright sun and smiles. It’s a brand new day. It’s the first day of the rest of her life with Josh. That thought alone is enough to shake off the awful feelings brought on by Greg. 

She’s already dialing Paula’s number before she reaches her car.

"Rebecca?” Paula answers groggily. “What are you doing up already? And are you okay? You disappeared last night."

"I didn't really go to sleep." Rebecca pauses for dramatic effect. "Josh and I were together. Like, _together_ , together."

Paula is suddenly ten decibels louder. "Where are you? What happened to Greg? Are you still with Josh now? Doesn't matter. _I am coming over right now_."

"I'm already out. I'll come to you.”

“I’ll make coffee. You need to tell me _everything_.”

“I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

After she hangs up, Rebecca uses her rear view mirror to salvage her eye makeup with a tissue. Satisfied, she smiles at herself with a brightness she doesn't fully feel. No matter. She has all the time in the world to figure it out with Josh.


	2. Greg

Morning slams its hairy fist into Greg’s bladder to let him know it's time to wake up, which he does very unwillingly. He would have liked to have slept longer, maybe into tomorrow, but once he's up, he's up. There's a dull throb in his head, and his back is aching, and something tangles around his ankles as he finds his way to standing, but he's done this still-kinda-drunk waltz from the couch to the bathroom before, so he finds his way without turning on any lights. 

It's still brighter than he'd prefer in the dim living room when he returns, just light enough to make out a small form curled up in the chair. 

Rebecca. 

As though Greg had summoned her by repeating her name three times in that darkened bathroom mirror, she's there, and her eyes groggily blink awake, unfocused and confused until they meet his. 

“Hey,” she says softly. 

He leans in, almost as if to make sure she's real. “What are you doing here?” His mouth is dry, his tongue dead weight that doesn't want to form words. 

She smiles, or maybe it's a grimace, gesturing to him and the floor. “I put a blanket on you, cleaned up…”

Greg vaguely recalls losing the contents of his stomach once or twice the previous night. He distinctly notices a lingering odor, maybe from his shirt. Or his hair. Probably both. The offending organ clenches, and there's a very real chance it could happen again (as if there was anything left to lose) as he stares at her and remembers the realization he had on that very sofa. 

“I...gotta...take a shower,” he sputters as he turns and flees.

The bathroom is a safe haven from the reality of Rebecca, but now he's alone with his thoughts. He loves her. Damn it, how did he let this happen? 

Greg steps in the shower before the water warms up, and it's instantly sobering. He lets the icy water stream over his aching head until he can't stand it and has to step back, shivering, watching as steam starts to build and now it's too hot. Just like Goldilocks, he thinks. He finally gets it just right and hurriedly begins soaping his torso when there's a hesitant knock, followed by the squeak of a hinge. 

“Can i come in? I really have to pee.”

Oh yeah. Rebecca. She's really here, and oh, have you heard? He loves her. 

“Of course,” he calls out, and he tries not to listen because that seems weird. It's mostly rustling noises, which also seems weird. 

“We need to talk,” she tells him, and his heart shouldn't pound so hard at that, but it does. That sentence is usually a harbinger of doom, and Greg hadn't exactly been a model wedding date the night before, so he's sure she must be mad. But just how mad? “She’s here, isn't she?” says Greg’s inner voice, which sometimes sounds like Sean Connery, and he's not sure why, but it's reassuring. “She can't be that mad.”

“We do, yes, we do.” Greg starts to open the shower curtain, and she shrieks at him to stop because he can't see her while she's peeing. It's mildly annoying but whatever, that's just Rebecca. He can do this behind a curtain — hell, maybe it’ll be easier. 

“Look, I know I was kind of a jerk last night,” he starts. “I can't remember a lot of specifics, but I know I tend to lean that direction when the alcohol is flowing, so first let me just make a blanket apology for everything I said or did last night.” 

He hears Rebecca exhale heavily. “Greg…”

“I know, that's a shitty apology. It's my specialty, along with self deprecating humor and a wicked right hook. That's not true, I can't throw a punch to save my life.”

“Greg, I don't…”

“No, no, let me get this out of the way.” He steels himself. The last time he had admitted he had feelings for a girl was Stacey Ratowski in the eleventh grade, and she had ended up dumping him for White Josh. Joke’s on you, Stacey! “I really am sorry, Bunch. You were excited and I was just feeling a little overwhelmed at how fast things were happening with us.” After waiting so long. “I shouldn't have been so...cavalier about it. It really was a nice wedding.” 

Greg waits a moment for a response, but there's nothing but a flush. He soldiers on. 

“Look, I was thinking about what you said last night. At least, what I think you said…about things being scary. I guess...I guess I was scared too. I mean, this, us — this could be the real thing, Bunch. I don't really know how to deal with that. Besides terribly, of course.” He ducks his head under the shower spray, then continues, emboldened by the separation provided by the curtain. 

“I have to admit, part of me hasn't been able to really accept that you're over Josh. I know, that's stupid, but it's just like he's been this presence between us and I just never felt like I could live up to it. I shouldn't have let that get in our way, though. Because I...I care about you too. I like you. A lot. I mean, I really like you.” 

Greg pauses, the weight of his feelings suddenly too much to bear. He takes a deep breath and shuts off the shower. “I like you in a way that could be described as love.”

There's nothing but the sound of liquid going down the drain. 

“Bunch?”

A fat water droplet plops on his head. 

“Rebecca? Did I leave you speechless?” Greg’s voice rises. He pulls back the curtain. 

She’s gone. 

“Shit.”

He wraps a towel around his waist and heads out to find her. He never heard the door close, and he's slightly panicked by uncertainty — just what part of his confession made her flee?

Rebecca is in the living room, pacing, shaking her head and muttering. Did he hear his name? Something about not being her prince. 

“What?” Greg asks, startling her. When she turns to him, he can see she has tear streaks running down her cheeks. “You're crying? Are you okay?”

And she's not, and neither is he all of a sudden. She wants to break up, and as much as he’s anticipated this from the start, it still knocks the wind out of him. 

She's being classic overly dramatic, slightly manic Rebecca, spouting ridiculous flowery bullshit about destiny when it's like the veil is lifted from his eyes and he knows. He was right all along, and he feels like a fucking idiot. 

“It's Josh, isn't it?” he spits bitterly. Rebecca's eyes widen for just a second, and she doesn't even have to respond with words. “Of course. I step aside for one minute, and Josh just sweeps in.”

In an instant, anger and hurt have a knock-down, drag-out fight for the top spot on Greg’s emotional playlist, which honestly doesn't have much variety anyway. Anger wins, for now. He lashes out, like he always does, more because he's mad at himself for letting this happen again, for letting his heart drag him here while his head was warning him off the whole time. 

He should have known better. It didn't matter that he let his guard down and let himself love her, even for a minute. Rebecca was never going to settle for him. 

And still, Greg knows she's setting herself up for heartbreak, too, which is totally what she deserves for doing this to him, and yet some part of him doesn't want that for her. 

“You think Josh is your Prince Charming, right?” 

She shakes her head, but it's not convincing. She suddenly can't look him in the eye, and he continues, not really thinking he’ll actually enlighten her but unable to stop himself. “I heard what you said when I came out of the bathroom. You think Josh is going to take you away, that you'll live happily ever after in your castle on a cloud.” His words are oozing with sarcasm, and it's clearly getting to Rebecca as she blinks away tears. 

“Josh was with Valencia for 15 years, and look where they ended up. How do you think that's gonna work out for you, sweetheart?” 

God, he knows Josh so much better than she does, and she has no idea what she has in store. Greg’s been the one who’s heard Josh’s drunken confessions, that he's been with Valencia so long he doesn't know how to get out of it, that he's not sure that he loves her or that he even knows what love is. Rebecca thinks Josh is running towards her, but little does she know he’s just running away from Valencia. 

He can't bring himself to say it, though. That would cross a line, even if he ends up being right, that Rebecca will never forgive him for, and as stupid and self-destructive as it is, he can't bear the thought of her hating him. 

Rebecca lashes back, defending herself, and he can't even hear it. All he can think is how beautiful she is, her makeup smudged from crying and her messy hair, her sex hair. Jesus. He suddenly feels colder than he did in the shower. 

"Don't you dare pretend I didn't care about you. I was completely honest about how I felt. I was so scared, and you let me down.”

Her words are a punch to the gut. He remembers that last conversation and his reaction, how he couldn't let down his defenses even as she laid her feelings bare. If only he hadn't been such a coward. 

She steps closer and all he wants to do is kiss her. 

“I'm going to get my happy ending with someone who isn't afraid to care about me,” she hisses and whirls around to head for the door. 

Greg feels himself deflate, the anger dissipating, leaving behind hurt and self pity, who are all too ready to share center stage. “Good luck with that,” he calls after her. 

Good luck. 

She’ll need it. 

As for Greg, though, there's only one thing he needs right now, and it comes in a bottle. 

He heads to the kitchen and pulls a clean-ish glass from the cabinet. The clinking sound when the vodka bottle hits the rim sounds like a toast. “Cheers!” he says before gulping down the clear liquid, feeling it burn on its way down. It's the last feeling he’s going to let himself have. 

It's easier just to be numb.

**Author's Note:**

> Since I got to post this, I took out a cute little back and forth blame-fest A/N and instead lay the entire thing at yumytaffy's feet. Which isn't true at all, muahaha. 
> 
> She wrote Rebecca's POV, I wrote Greg's POV, and much of the dialogue was co-written, but the idea was mine. Sorry not sorry.


End file.
